


You or Your Memory

by hops



Series: Sizzled Out [5]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Breakup, Multi, fight, kind of?, when am i not writing a fight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-11
Updated: 2017-11-11
Packaged: 2019-01-31 16:24:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12685650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hops/pseuds/hops
Summary: Taako and Magnus avoid another conversation, fall into another bed, and have another fight.





	You or Your Memory

**Author's Note:**

> Follow up to "Exception to the Rule," the previous installation in this series. 
> 
> Title is from the song of the same name by The Mountain Goats (a mood this week) 
> 
>  
> 
> _I ducked behind the drapes when I saw the moon begin to rise_  
>  _Gathered in my loose ends switched off the light_  
>  _And down there in the dark I can see the real truth about me_  
>  _As clear as day, Lord if I make it through tonight_

Magnus showed up at the Reaper Squad Residence, as their family had so affectionately taken to calling it, unannounced, tipsy, in the wee hours of the morning. It seemed this was the only was it was going to go; Magnus hadn’t seen or spoken to him since he’d kicked him out of his house after the falling out they’d had over Magnus’s relationship with Lucretia, and their relationship, complicated as ever.

He called Taako’s stone of farspeech, hoping not to wake Lup.

“You better have a good reason for-- fuckin’--” Taako muttered, voice muffled by sleep and pillows alike.

“Sorry to wake you, I was just in town and, I’m, uh, outside. If you have a minute.”

There was a sound of rustling blankets for a moment before Taako spoke again. “Maggie?”

“Yeah. Hey.”

Taako ended the call and tossed the stone aside. He was at the front door before Magnus could even rehearse a greeting. When Taako opened the door, he was in his silk robe, hair in curlers, and his makeup done. His eyes glimmered through long lashes in the porchlight. Magnus knew immediately that he had a disguise spell up.

“It’s so good to see your stupid face,” Taako breathed.

“I-- Is Lup home?”

Taako knit his brow.

The faint smell of alcohol coming from his mouth drifted up to Magnus.

“No, working. You’re here to see her?”

Taako was trying very hard not to sound dejected. Magnus noticed how hard it was for him to hide it.

Magnus looked down, shoving his hands in his pockets, half in shyness and half in resisting the urge to reach out and touch Taako. “No, I just-- I don’t know. Didn’t know if she was mad at me too.”

He didn’t mention the brief talk he’d had with Lup about Taako’s anger, or the weird space Taako had come to occupy, distant from even his sister. She’d suggested giving him some room to breathe, saying it would probably be for the best, so he had. But he was in town, and Taako was here, and… he missed him.

“She knows that me being an asshole is my own fault.”

Before Magnus could respond, Taako turned quickly and walked towards the kitchen, leaving the door open for him to follow. Magnus closed the door behind him and walked the long hall from the front of the house to the back, lined with drawings and photos of the houses’ residents and various other family members. There were a few salvaged from Lucretia’s archives of their days on the Starblaster, probably hung by Lup: a sketch of her and Barry at the beach, of she and Taako standing back-to-back, another of her on Magnus’s shoulder, both of them flexing. Magnus smiled to himself.

There were lots of photos from their days after the Story and Song. A few of Kravitz and Taako, some looking candid but, knowing Taako, they surely were not. Smiling. Drinking. Laughing. Loving. All these times that Magnus just hadn’t been there for. Something strange and aching panged in his stomach.

A whole bunch of other group pictures lined the walls: some from Carey and Killian’s wedding, some with Avi and Robbie, so many with Angus. And from their days adventuring as strangers, a single photo of Merle, Taako, and Magnus, smiling at the Bureau, not long after their return from Rockport.

The ache inside him moved upwards into his chest.

Part of him missed who they’d been then. Shells of themselves, but so… uncomplicated by their stories. By their pain.

“You coming, bubbeleh?” Taako called from the kitchen as he rummaged through the fridge. “You want a drink?”

Magnus ran a finger over a photo from a long-passed family dinner, the one Taako had hosted without inviting Lucretia. The night that Magnus had called her, wanting to make amends. There wasn’t a single photo of her on the walls.

“Yeah, sure,” Magnus answered, stepping into the kitchen. Taako flicked a mage hand across the room, smoothly delivering a cold glass bottle right to Magnus without looking. Magnus took the drink into his hand and looked at the label. His favorite cider.

He hadn’t seen him in months, and he still had them waiting in the fridge. His heart sank a little. He wasn’t sure why.

Taako had fixed himself a cosmopolitan while Magnus had been in the hallway. Magnus wondered if Taako used the cantrip for anything but cooking these days. Maybe it was better that way.

Magnus eyed the drink with a brow raised.

“Krav might be rubbing off on me. Only a little.”

“No curly straw or anything?”

Taako laughed. “Shut it.”

They sipped for a moment as Magnus sat at the extravagant island in the middle of the room, and Taako leaned up against the wood of the butcher’s block that made up the other piece of the island opposite him. It wasn’t uncomfortable, but it wasn’t pleasant. The last time they’d spoken, Taako was babbling apologies, and Magnus was kicking him out of his house.

“Listen.. About what I said, back, well, y’know,” Taako said, floundering a bit. Magnus waited for him to finish. “I was an idiot. Really, I don’t know what I had goin’ on up here…”

Magnus watched as the elf spoke with his hand, then whirled a long finger next to his ear in the universal signal for _crazy._ He knew Taako always got more expressive when he was on the spot. Performative, as it were.

“I get it.”

“And I really don’t know why I said what I did, I just-- I’m just pissed off about a lot of stuff, and I dunno, m’dude. It hasn’t been the best time.”

Magnus nodded thoughtfully, waiting for the apology he knew wouldn’t come.

He paused for a moment before he spoke. “You know, you can _talk_ about things before they reach the point of an argument?”

Taako only laughed and sipped from his martini glass.

“I’m serious, Taak.”

“I hear ya, but you don’t really get it. I mean, nobody does? Which, if we’re keepin’ it real here, sucks ass.”

Magnus sighed and picked at the label of his cider. “Right, but how can anyone begin to get it if you won’t talk about it?”

“Why bother?”

Magnus pursed his lips and sighed through his nose. “Because--”

“I mean, nobody knows how it feels, that’s just how it is! And I guess it’s like… why bother trying to explain it, right? It’s a bummer. Sorry, wow, you caught me on a bad day, big guy. Sleepy and sappy, bad fuckin’ combo.”

 _And half-drunk,_ he wanted to say. He stared at the countertop. At the martini glass. At Taako’s purple fingernails. He wondered if Lup had painted them. Taako was terrible at painting them himself, no matter how many times Magnus had tried to teach him in their apartment on the moonbase. He’d spent so much time with Taako’s hands delicately placed in his own.

“S’alright,” Magnus said absently.

“So why’re you here, anyway?” Taako asked. He hopped up onto the counter and easily slid around the edge to Magnus’s side so he could sit beside him. “Out drinking?”

“Saw Carey for a little bit. Figured I’d say hi, wondered if I’d... “

“You’d…?”

“I dunno. If I’d be able to see you, talk to you...”

Taako unfurled a long tendril of hair from a curler and let it tumble down to frame his face. “Well, you’re lookin’ at me.”

The same tug in his gut that he’d felt when he looked at the photos of Taako and Kravitz returned as Taako took more curlers from his hair. He knew he wasn’t going to get an apology. It was a miracle that Taako had so much as acknowledged that the things he’d said were shitty.

His eyes wandered to the parted silk robe, seeing Taako’s soft skin beneath. He wanted to touch him. He found himself always wanting to reach out for him. It felt like second nature now. For that reason, sleeping alone was hard.

Sleeping with Lucretia, at the cost of Taako’s presence, felt harder sometimes.

When Taako had freed himself of his curlers, his hair fell in half-bodied waves down his back. “I was thinking how it’s funny, now, how we have everything we could want, but life still kinda sucks the big one, right?”

Magnus didn’t say anything. Taako took a long gulp of his pink beverage.

“At least, feels like it for me. Maybe everyone else has it made? Iunno. I got everything I wanted in the end, ‘cept you, I guess. Can’t seem to stop fuckin’ that one up, right?”

“Taako, why are you--”

Taako laughed loudly, the sound watery, his eyes suddenly full of tears. A tiny bit of his drink sloshed onto the counter as he set it down. “You just have hilarious timing, Maggie. I had a big fight with Krav, too. I can’t stop saying stupid shit I guess, like an idiot.”

So that was why. “I know things have been hard.” Magnus continued picking at the label on the sweating bottle instead of looking at him any longer.

“Understatement, probably. You were right about burning bridges, I can’t fuckin’ get enough, right?”

Magnus looked up at him and met his eyes. “Kravitz loves you. You know that.”

“Kravitz doesn’t _know_ me. And if he did, he’d bail in a hot second, right? Ol’ Taako’s a lil’ much for someone who hasn’t had a hundred years of practice.”

“That’s not tr--”

“Oh, it certainly is true, for sure.”

Magnus said nothing once again. He knew it wasn’t true, but there was no reasoning with Taako when he was so damn sure of himself. When he was hellbent on joking himself down into nothing, there was nothing Magnus could do to stop the train of thought.

The touch of Taako’s hand on his broad shoulder drew his attention.

“But you forgive me when I say stupid shit I don’t mean. Everyone else…”

Taako hadn’t even apologized, never mind Magnus forgiving him.

“They don’t get it?”

Taako nodded. “Yeah.”

“You think I do?”

Taako was still for a few long moments. Then, all at once. Taako took Magnus’s face into both of his hands and kissed him softly. Magnus made a small noise of surprise and pulled away.

“I know you do,” Taako whispered.

He sighed, turning from Taako’s gaze. “I didn’t come here for this.”

“Door’s open if you wanna leave, baby.”

He didn’t want to leave.

It’d been so fucking long since Taako had called him baby.

It made his heart fold in on itself.

What was he doing here?

Magnus shot up and kissed Taako with force, one hand on his waist and the other on his neck. He ran a broad thumb over Taako’s cheek to wipe a fat tear. He took in his face, framed by soft blonde, in the kitchen light. He kissed him again

Their lips crashed together harder than Magnus had meant them to. But as he tried to let up, Taako clung closer. He tasted like vodka and not much else. It felt strange. Unfamiliar. Taako only broke their kiss to let a tiny sob leave him here and there. Tears pressed from Taako’s cheeks and onto Magnus’s.

Magnus pulled away and forced a space between them by putting a hand on Taako’s shoulder when he tried to follow him away. “Taako-- I don’t--”

“Please, please,” Taako panted, eyes half-closed, lips parted in half-pout. The disguise spell was still up. His lipstick lay unsmudged. “Please. I miss you. I miss you, I need you.”

Magnus pulled him closer by the small of his back so his thighs were off the edge of the countertop. The warmth of his body… that much was familiar, even when nothing else was.

“Why are you crying?”

Taako laughed and pressed more kisses to Magnus’s mouth. “Doesn’t matter,” he said between nips at Magnus’s bottom lip.

Magnus faltered. “We shouldn’t--”

“Then go.”

Magnus couldn’t pull away. Not now. His tongue tangled with Taako’s. He pulled him closer still.

Their breath was ragged, out of sync as they took pause.

Magnus let out a long, trembling breath. “I don’t know what to do.”

“We don’t have to talk about it,” Taako panted. “Just take me upstairs.”

It was messy. Everything about it. The way Magnus lifted him effortlessly, Taako’s legs wrapped tight around his waist as Magnus carried him up the stairs. The way their mouths moved, hellbent on crushing each other. The bites that sucked to mark and lingered just a moment too long until they hurt. The searching of tongues, the groping of hands, the desperate tearing at clothes. Magnus practically threw him onto the bed before crawling up over him and rolling him onto his stomach. The handful of hair he took was just a little too tight, and as he tugged a little too hard, Taako moaned loudly.

Despite their sloppy kisses, Magnus found his makeup still untouched when he yanked Taako’s head back to kiss him. Thinking about the disguise spell, and how he knew he didn’t keep it up around Kravitz, filled him with something bitter. Acidic.

“Focus on this,” he growled at Taako’s ear.

Taako suddenly felt rigid against him. “Turn the lights off.”

The ache in his stomach tightened, all the way up through his chest. “I wanna look at you.”

“You really don’t, bubbeleh."

“I wanna look at you,” he repeated, and pulled Taako up so they were both on their knees on the mattress. He slid a hand down Taako’s abdomen and onto one of his thighs.

Taako barked a laugh through the very last of his tears and shook his head. A mage hand crossed the room and hit the lightswitch.

The rest was furious and quick and sloppy and wrong. He rutted into Taako, hands gripping his hips hard enough to bruise. He hadn’t fucked him like that since after Refuge, after he felt him slipping away, becoming someone different, someone familiar but unknown entirely.

The softness, the familiar magnetism, it vanished as fast as it’d appeared. He tugged Taako’s hair harder, then wrapped a big hand around the front of his throat. That felt wrong. Worse.

He flipped Taako onto his back and fucked him that way, hoping that Taako holding onto him and pulling close would make it feel better. It didn’t.

Taako murmured empty words of encouragement, the same as always. _Yes, yes, yes,_ and _oh, yeah, there_ and streams of curse words under his breath. It was all wrong. It sat like a stone inside him.

Was it because of Lucretia? Was it because of him?

Taako leaned up to kiss him and he turned away slightly so Taako’s lips caught his neck. He fucked harder, focusing on memory, instinct, familiarity, of the sound of their bodies meeting and parting and meeting again. How did they keep ending up here?

He leaned down and buried his face in Taako’s neck and didn’t stop until Taako came, and he followed soon after. As he rolled onto his side he dwelled on Taako’s broken laughter once more. Maybe he’d known even before Magnus did that there was no way it could be the same. Not after everything. Not after what he’d said about him, and Lucretia, and Julia. Magnus kept saying he loved him, but he wasn’t even sure what it meant anymore. He loved him in the way that he missed him. In the way that he desperately wanted the Taako that he had loved to come back.

Things were so different now. And they’d fought about it, sure, but they hadn’t talked about it. Almost two and a half years since their memories returned, and they still hadn’t talked about it.

Taako sniffed beside him in the dark. Any other time, Magnus would have curled around him and held him tight, but he felt helpless to do nothing but roll out of bed, grab his discarded boxers, and go to take a shower alone.

As the bathroom mirror began to fog, he looked at himself: his messy hair, swollen lips, collarbone and neck littered with bite marks and scratches. He ran a hand over his face, then stared as the steam overtook any last visibility of his reflection.

Magnus stepped into the shower and let the hot water pour over him.

It wasn’t right. All of that, all of _this…_ Taako was _there,_ he could feel him in the way they’d spoken in the kitchen, in the way he said his name, in the bottle of cider he’d kept in his crowded refrigerator just in case he stopped by. But Taako wasn’t the same. And neither was he. And they didn’t _need_ to be the same, but they couldn’t be so… foreign.

He washed himself with soap, gently at first, then scrubbing at his neck. His face. His thighs. How could these months have changed so much? _What are you doing here?_

Taako needed someone. And it wasn’t Kravitz, and perhaps it wasn’t even Lup. But it certainly wasn’t Magnus. It _couldn’t be_ Magnus. They could never be what they’d once been.

Banging on the door roused him from his thoughts. He sighed, expecting Taako, but it wasn’t Taako’s voice that came from the hall.

“C’mon, Krav, I just got in and I need my toothbrush, let’s hurry it up, huh?” Lup called. “What are you even doing? Warming up your weird cold bod for round two?”

Magnus’s stomach dropped to his feet, realizing that at some point she’d come home. _Fuck._

Lup banged on the door again. “Let’s goooo! I’ve got a corporeal form and it needs some beauty sleep! Where were you instead of work tonight, anyway?”

Magnus turned the shower off, still not saying anything. He wrapped a towel around his waist and stood still by the sink, thinking. Panicking.

“Don’t make me cast _knock_ , alright? I don’t want an eyeful of that. No offense.”

Magnus took one deep breath and opened the door at once. Lup stopped mid-word of whatever mockery she was about to continue and stared. Magnus stared back, mouth pressed into a hard line.

“Oh, Magnus,” she said, sad, soft, and disappointed. It cut through him like a scythe, a death blow, so much worse than the fiery anger he’d anticipated.

“Hey.”

“What are you--” she stopped, taking a moment to collect herself, then pushed him back into the foggy bathroom and shut the door behind her. “Dear, why… I told you that this is the _last_ thing in the world that’s going to help him.”

“I don’t know, I was just in town and I… I don’t know. I just wanted to talk to him.”

She folded her arms and looked down at the tile beneath them. “Then call him.”

“Lup.”

“I’m serious, he needs-- he doesn’t need this. Not right now.”

Magnus paused, waiting for her to look up, but she didn’t. “What do you mean?”

“Nothing, dear.” She waved a hand. “It’s just been a tough time lately. You know. He just needs a little time to get his head on straight. Don’t we all?” She laughed. There was something _wrong_ about the sound that he couldn’t place.

“I’m going, anyway. It’s fine.”

“Wait--”

He moved past her, snatching his boxers from the floor and returning to Taako’s bedroom. He found the elf curled on his side of the bed, blankets tight around him. Magnus wondered if he was still having nightmares.

“Come back to bed, Maggie,” Taako sang softly, turning to look up at Magnus.

“I, uh, I gotta get home.”

Taako sat up, shrugging the blankets away from him. He looked so thin. _Has he always been so…_

“Baby--”  

The name made him feel a little sick. He had to leave. This was wrong, wrong, wrong, he was wrong to come here, to do this, to lure Taako back into this pattern that sent him spinning out. Taako needed someone, it wasn’t him, it couldn’t be him, it wouldn’t ever be again. _Why do you keep doing this to him?_

_What are you doing here?_

“No, I need to go.” He gathered up his clothes and dressed himself as Taako got out of bed.

“Just stay until the morning, bubbeleh. What’s the rush? It’s the middle of the night.”

“I think it’s for the best.”

When he met Taako’s eyes, the disguise spell was back up and he was tying his robe around his waist.

Magnus hesitated. “I’m gonna go, okay? I don’t think this is a good idea. Just-- call me, I guess.”

“What d’you mean?”

Magnus stepped out into the hallway. He caught Lup’s eye just before she disappeared into her room. He swallowed.

“Magnus, what do you mean?” Taako pressed, sounding anxious now. He followed him out into the hall.

“I care about you so much, Taako, and I just-- you need someone, and it’s not me, okay? I know that much.” Magnus sighed, walking down the stairs. Taako followed behind him.

“No, no no, please don’t,” Taako pleaded, but laughed in disbelief.

“It’s not me.”

Magnus had never been more thankful that he didn’t have to see Taako’s face.

To his genuine surprise, Taako’s voice was soft when he spoke. “It is you. It’s always been you.”

Magnus stopped at the bottom of the stairs and waited for Taako to catch up to him. He brushed a hand over Taako’s arm. “It’s not. It can’t always be me, Taako sometimes I really mess stuff up and that’s not fair to you.”

“But you’re the only thing-- you made sense when nothing else did. Even when I didn’t know you, I knew it was you.”

The sudden admission caught Magnus off guard. All this time and they’d never talked about that. The pull, from the very beginning, at both beginnings. “I-- yeah. Yeah, me too.”

“So don’t throw that away on me, here, like--”

“I’m not _throwing it away,_ it’s just not working right now, it doesn’t mean that it can’t _ever_ work.”

“Newsflash! Nothing is really working for any of us. Everything is different and I’m still the same, so we learn to… to... ”

 _You're not the same._ “I’m still here, Taako, I’m not going anywhere. We’ll always be family. I’ll always love you.”

“That’s not what I said.”

Magnus took a deep breath in. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

They walked into the hallway that Magnus had entered through not long before, lined with all the photographs. He didn’t look at them. He couldn’t.

Taako laughed bitterly, losing his composure. “Unbelievable, right? Stupid. I fell for you, then you got fuckin’ voidfished, then I fell for you again, like an idiot. You’re the only thing that holds all that shit together and now I-- I don’t know how I'm supposed to just-- live this whole new life without you!”

“I’m not going anywhere, and I’m not the only thing, Taako. I’m not. I promise. Don’t think that way.”

“You _are!"_

“I’m not leaving you! I just don’t think we should do this anymore, Taako, we’re just hurting each other”

“What the hell changed? What did I do?”

“It’s-- You didn’t _do_ anything, it’s just different, alright? We’re not the same anymore, and that’s okay!” Magnus’s voice broke a little. “It’s okay, it’s just how it is, and you have Kravitz now and he--”

“He doesn’t _know_ me!” Taako cried.

“Then tell him, Taako! Talk to him! Talk to _anyone!”_

“I _can’t!”_

“I don’t know what you want me to say. Upstairs? That?” He motioned in the direction of the stars. “It was wrong, and I know you felt it.”  

Taako protested, “What are you talking about?”

Magnus nearly scoffed. Taako’s ability to avoid a conversation always amazed him. “You were crying, I was-- I was upset, and it just felt like we were trying to _hurt_ each other. That’s not me. I don’t-- we don’t do that.”

“You weren’t,” Taako said tearfully. “I know you wouldn’t, we were just--”

“I have to go, alright? Please, Taak, I have to go home. I’m sorry.” Magnus turned from him.

The word _home_ snapped something within him. Between them. Magnus felt it echo through his body.

“Is she waiting up for you?”

And in an instant, the accusatory tone was back with twice as much venom as it had been as they’d fought at Magnus’s house. The shift from tearful to vicious at the drop of a hat gave him whiplash. Magnus turned around and blinked.

“Please, tell me Maggie, why’d you come here? Why bother showin’ up? Why not just fly back to the fuckin’ moon?”

_I wanted you to apologize._

“I don’t know. I missed you.”

“Yeah, sure,” Taako laughed and wiped his nose on the sleeve of his robe. “You missed me, _adooorable._  You don’t talk to me for fuckin’ months and then all of a sudden you show up, fuck me, then leave to go crawl into bed with her? Actually? Fuck that.”

“Don’t--”

“That’s _always_ how it was, wasn’t it? At the end of the day, right? Taako’s only good for sloppy seconds, last picks, who you fuck when your girlfriend’s not around.”

Magnus’s heart fractured deep within his chest.

_Is this what you felt this whole time?_

Taako pushed on. “Whenever you were with me, it just wasn’t enough, right? Don’t need _you_ to tell me that, big guy. I’m good. I already know. Did you fuck her at the Bureau, too? Huh?”

Magnus’s blood ran ice cold. “N-no, I wasn’t--” he stammered. He didn't have the poker faced for a bold-faced lie. 

But Taako was already cursing himself. “Every damn time. Every damn time, you fucking _idiot!”_ Taako kicked at the wall. The picture frames above him shook. He turned back around to continue his rant. “I tried to act like you didn’t have to choose, because I knew who you’d choose. I tried _so fuckin’ hard_ to play this like it was fine, but it’s NOT! It never was.” Taako washed away into sobs. “You can’t-- you can’t love me and keep doing this with her! You just CAN’T!”

Magnus felt his eyes well with tears. _This same fight, this same damn fight, over and over and over._ “I didn’t choose--”

“She took _EVERYTHING FROM ME!_ And now she’s taking you too, insult to FUCKIN’ injury--” Taako shrieked, pushing Magnus up to the wall, he closed his eyes and took the brunt of the anger without protest. “Where do you get off, Mags? Where do you _get off_?”

“Stop, just-- just--”

Taako pushed on. “ _How could you do this to us?”_ He beat a balled fist against Magnus’s chest as Magnus stood there, rocked slightly by the motion with his head against the wall, eyes closed and crying. Taako yelled on. “I loved you and you treated me like fucking _shit!_ Just like _everybody else._ You were different, we were _different!_ ”

With a final defeated cry, Taako took two fistfuls of Magnus’s shirt and collapsed against him, sobbing into his chest. Magnus clutched him as tightly as he could and held him there.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay,” Magnus said, loudly at first to quell him, then softly to soothe him. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Taako crumbled to a pink silken heap on the hardwood of the hallway. Magnus followed him down and tried to gather him back into his arms, but it was no use. Taako had finally folded, shattered, dissolved into nothing but memories and wishes and regrets and anger that pulsed with every beat of his heart.

“It’s gone now,” he sobbed into Magnus’s chest. “Everything.”

Magnus said nothing, afraid to know what he meant.

“Just once I want it to be enough. It hurts.” His voice was so hoarse.

Magnus rubbed his back.

“It hurts,” Taako wailed, moving towards incoherence, crying into Magnus’s chest. “It hurts, it hurts, it _hurts.”_

“I know,” Magnus tried to say, but the sound wouldn’t leave his mouth.

He had never seen him this bad. Not once, ever.

Lup’s footsteps on the stairs twisted Magnus’s heart, but there was nothing he could do now except let her witness the mess he’d once again made of her brother. She turned the corner to the hallway, haloed by the glow of the lights above and their reflections in the picture frames. Upon the sight of Taako clutched to Magnus’s chest, she slowed her pace. Magnus caught her eye as a plea for help, or mercy, as she turned. She closed her eyes for a moment to gather herself.

She took a deep breath in, crouched to her knees, and took Taako into her arms. As soon as Magnus was free, she said, “Go home.”

“What?”

“Go home. Please, Magnus. I need to care of him.”

Magnus’s eyes darted from Taako to Lup. This was his mess, once again. He had to fix it. “But--”

“Please. I know you don’t want to, but I meant it. Just… don’t come around for now. Even when I’m not here, please dear, just-- please.”

“I’m sorry.”

She paused from rubbing Taako’s back and held up a hand for just a moment to stop Magnus. “No need. Just... I’ll call you, okay? I promise.”

He wanted to say “okay,” but the sound got caught in the tightness of his throat. He wanted to touch Taako, or to smooth his hair, or to kiss his forehead, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t even say goodbye, or that he loved him.

What if this was the last time?

He looked at Taako, curled into himself on the floor. It was too late now. He walked out of the house and closed the door, leaving the twins and their tears and their crumpled heap and their hallway and their pictures and pictures and pictures.


End file.
